Thai Kitchen instant rice noodle soup, Garlic & Vegetable flavor

Hi everyone. Today I shall be revieing Thai Kitchen's "instant rice noodle soup," in the Garlic & Vegetable flavor. It's vegan! And it falls into that category of "probably not actually ramen" (actually it's definitely not ramen) so I did actually go ahead and change the subtitle of the blog. It'll be like an in-joke. I can see it now:

"Why is the subtitle of that awesome blog so nonspecific?"

"Because the author kept reviewing non-ramen. *nods sagely*"

Also on the list of changes I made: I decided to change my scoring system. I'm through with the score-out-of-five system-- it's too rough. I can't remember where I've ranked things and I do feel like I either love ramens or hate ramens, so it makes more sense to go with a three-tiered system, the options being "good," "bad," and "indifferent." Hooray eloquence.

Onto the not-ramen.

First, what I was expecting. I love garlic. I love- well not love, but tolerate vegetables. When I think "garlic," I think "spaghetti." Since I'm not well-versed in pseudo-Thai food, and this is a noodle product, my mental image became spaghetti-like.

I was instructed to add a cup of water (which I wouldn't ultimately drain) to the noodles, along with the packets of oil and seasoning. The seasoning smelled great, but the oil smelled... off. The combination of the ingredients smelled oily and sort of questionable. I chalked it up to the package expiring back in July. (This was the point at which I noticed the camera thought it was March. I was apparently stuck in some sort of weird three-month... trichotomy.) Apparently I have a thing for old food. Maybe I should talk to someone about that.

I took it out of the microwave and poked at it a little. The rice noodles were a pleasant change-- they were thin, bendy, and not fried. (They sort of looked to me a little like some form of parasite, but I got over that.)

The one cup of water was a surprisingly good amount. The water got absorbed, but if I squished the noodles, it came oozing out. It smelled okay.

However, where it faltered was living up to my expectations. Here's exactly what I wrote down in my notes:

"tastes okay. not my favorite, by a long shot, but it's edible.

also expected vegetable hunks but no

so basically tastes nothing like garlic and vegetable to me.

basically tastes like 'bleugh.' kind of musty. stale. like old oil. maybe the oil spoiled. is that possible? or maybe the noodles went bad. i don't know."

(I then found one of my own hairs in the bowl and got a little weirded out because I wasn't sure how that got there. But I digress...) ANYWAY I couldn't eat much of it. It tasted worse and worse with each bite. "Musty" really was the best adjective somehow.

The worst was yet to come. I dumped it in the trash and took the trash out, but the smell just wouldn't go away. I opened a window, which took care of my room (only to infect the hallway) but the bowl was a hopeless case. I scrubbed and scrubbed and washed it a few times, but even now it smells like bad oil. >=( Oh well, good thing it was actually my roommate's...

Final score: bad